


What Dreams May Come

by thedevilchicken



Category: Ancient Egyptian RPF, Ancient Egyptian Religion, Ancient History RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7447537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was young, Akhenaten had a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Dreams May Come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



When he was young, Akhenaten had a dream. 

He wasn't Akhenaten then, of course, not even Amenhotep but another name he made himself forget when he got older. He was five years old and when he woke from his nap in the afternoon heat he knew he shouldn't tell his father. Father was busy. Father was home for the first time in weeks and he'd be speaking with his vizier and the priests and planning the festival. Father felt it was important to have a hand in it. He knew he shouldn't interrupt. He went back to sleep.

When Akhenaten was young, his brother died. 

He had several brothers and several sisters, but he knew that one of them mattered more than the others: Thutmose. When he died, there was a funeral, mourning, his mummified body interred as a prince of Egypt after it had lain seventy days in natron. Akhenaten wondered what his brother would look like, under the bandages, in his coffin inside the sarcophagus. He wondered if he'd be able to recognise him at all. He wondered if, like Osiris, magic could bring his brother back if only he said the right words. 

He didn't pray to Thoth, the magician, to bring his brother back. He didn't pray to Amun-Re, the sun god in his barque. He prayed to his god, to his own god, to the Aten that he dreamed about at night. He stood in the sun and he stretched out his arms and he felt the sun's heat on his skin like gentle hands, just like he'd dreamed. When he opened his eyes, he understood: his brother would not return. He would rule instead. 

When he took the throne, his name was Amenhotep IV. He ruled with his father for a time, learning though he couldn't see what else he had to learn, and all their advisors, all their priests and their servants and their slaves, still looked to Amenhotep III. He understood, though their levels of deference rankled, as their country had such power then, such reach and wealth and purpose. Sometimes he would stand beneath the statues of his father and feel that they were what had given him life more than the man had. 

And then, he'd return to the palace and he'd chalk a circle onto the tiled floor of his bedchamber because the sun had set outside. He asked the Aten what he should do. He asked the Aten who he would be. Nefertiti's hand on his shoulder felt like the answer he wanted. 

In the fifth year of his reign, once his father was dead and gone and in his tomb because Akhenaten couldn't see it any other way but that, he changed his name and he moved away from Thebes. He understood what he had to do. Amenhotep became Akhenaten, Great of Kingship in Akhetaten. And on his walls they carved the sun disk, with its rays stretched down like arms to the king. The Aten's hands gave him life. 

When he was young, Akhenaten had a dream. When he was older, that dream came true. For a little while, at least.


End file.
